But Tony beckoned to another figure, who emerged from the shadows of the corridor. Rory tensed, not certain who she expected to appear, some tough-Looking hoodlum perhaps. Certainly not the prim middle-aged woman who joined Tony on the threshold. Garbed in a plant black gown, the woman had dark hair veiled beneath a shawl. Her sharp features could never have been described as pretty, but it was the bitterness lurking in her eyes that robbed her face of any charm she might have had.
Rory had to fight down an urge to slam her door and bolt it against this grim stranger. Instead she said, "I don't know what this is all about, Tony. You've made some mistake. This lady doesn't look in the least like anyone who would be acquainted with Mr. Morrison."
"I am afraid you're wrong, my dear."
Zeke's voice startled Rory. He had stolen up silently behind her, peering over her shoulder into the hall. Tony flushed and swore at the sight of Zeke, but the reaction of the strange woman was far more spectacular.
She blanched. Her eyes glittered with a hatred so strong it was as though a chilling wind swept through the hall, seeping into Rory's flat.
Bewildered, Rory glanced up at Zeke. "Then you do know this lady?"
He nodded, his eyes dull with remembered pain, but no more so than his voice when he replied.
"Of course I do. She's my sister."
CHAPTER NINE
Rory never remembered stepping aside, allowing her door to swing wide, but somehow the four of them ended up in her parlor—herself, Zeke, Tony and the woman with the dark hair and bitter eyes.
Zeke's sister.
An astonished silence had followed Zeke's statement, though it did not shock Rory so much to discover that he had a sister, or even that by contrast, the woman's clothes appeared plain and worn next to Zeke's expensive suit. What mostly stunned Rory was the depth of hatred contorting the woman's face. Although she had consented to enter, she lingered near the door, retreating deeper into the depths of her shawl as though she could not bear the sight of Zeke.
Rory's parlor had always been more cozy than spacious. With the undercurrents of emotion crackling in the air, the room seemed stifling. The woman said nothing, merely fretting the ends of her shawl. Tony hovered near Rory, glaring at Zeke like a jealous dog guarding a bone. Rory felt at a loss as to what to say or do next. Only Zeke maintained a semblance of calm. Leaning up against the mantel, he crossed his arms over his chest. His gaze remained steady, never wavering from his sister's face. "This is a most unexpected reunion, Tessa. Permit me to introduce you to Miss Kavanaugh. Rory, this is my sister—"
"You are no brother of mine!" The woman spoke at last, her voice charged with loathing.
Only the flicker of an eyelid betrayed that her harsh words had any effect on Zeke. "So you have always told me, Tessa, on many occasions." He continued with deliberate emphasis. "This is my sister, Theresa Marceone."
He tipped his chin to that pugnacious angle, as though challenging her to contradict him again. When she did nothing but compress her lips, he turned to Rory. "And your friend?"
It took Rory an instant to realize that he was inquiring after Tony.
“This is Tony. Tony Bertelli."
"Ah, the long-lost balloon assistant."
It was as well Zeke didn't offer his hand, for Tony would never have taken it. Rory held her breath as the two men sized each other up, the hostility overt at least on Tony's part. She had thought that Tony had grown to be such a man of late. But standing in Zeke's shadow, he appeared no more than a sulky boy, and Rory sensed that Tony was miserably aware of that fact.
"Well, Mr. Bertelli, I missed some of what you were saying outside." Zeke's pleasantness was deceptive, never reaching as far as his eyes. "Perhaps you'd like to explain again why you have brought Tessa to call upon Rory."
"If I had known you would be here," Tessa spat out "I wouldn't have come."
"I have no doubt of that. But forgive me, Tessa. I was addressing Mr. Bertelli."
Tony washed a dull red, but he thrust his hands in his pockets, adopting that belligerent stance Rory knew too well. "I don't like Rory going out with strangers. I told her I'd do some checking. My brother Angelo has this friend who—.”
"Oh, please, Tony." Rory gave a weary sigh. "Not that bit with the second cousin again."
"Anyhow," Tony continued doggedly, "I was lucky enough to track down Miss Marceone here, ask her some questions. I told her I had this friend who was getting involved with this Morrison fellow. She was nice enough to come with me to see Rory. To-" Tony faltered, looking a little uncomfortable beneath Zeke's hard stare.
"To warn her?" Zeke filled in softly.
Rory tried to intervene. "This is all very melodramatic and quite silly."
"Perhaps not, my dear," Zeke said, shifting his attention back to his sister. "What about it, Tessa? You've come a long way. Aren't you going to speak your piece? Don't hold back on my account."
"I don't intend to," she said.
"Good for you. I'll say this much for you. You never were a backbiter. You always were willing to abuse me quite freely to my face."
Tessa ignored him, turning instead to Rory. Peering from beneath the layers of that black shawl, the woman made Rory think of a strange play Da had once taken her to see, something about the old days in Greece. A group of women had acted like a chorus chanting dire predictions. Theresa Marceone reminded Rory of just such a harbinger of doom as she gestured toward Zeke.
"Miss Kavanaugh, you don't want to have anything to do with my broth— with this person here who calls himself Zeke Morrison. He's a bad man."
Rory opened her mouth, then closed it. What on earth was one supposed to reply to such a statement? She didn't want to insult the woman, nor did she wish to listen to Tessa's venomous remarks about Zeke either. Rory cast an appealing glance toward him, seeking some sort of guidance on how to handle this extraordinary situation. But Zeke appeared to have retreated behind a wall of detachment as though none of these proceedings concerned him.
Tony tugged at her elbow, urging in a low voice, "You listen to Miss Marceone, Rory. She ought to know. She can tell you everything."
Tessa nodded in grim agreement. "My mother took that man off the streets when he was seven years old. She used to call him Johnnie, raised him up like her own son. He repaid her with nothing but heartaches. In and out of trouble until he had to flee New York. He finally returned, a rich man, though God alone knows how."
Tessa paused to cross herself. "That was when he finally broke my mother's heart, turned his back on her."
"That is not true," Zeke interrupted. "I would have given that woman heaven and earth."
"Mama didn't want heaven and earth." Tessa whipped about to face Zeke, her eyes burning. "All she ever wanted was some small sign of love from you, just once to hear you call her 'mother.' All your lousy money and you couldn't even give her that."
Zeke's detachment crumbled. He paled, looking as though he had just taken a kick in the gut.
"You killed Mama with worrying over you," Tessa shrilled. "And then you didn't even come to see her buried."
Rory waited for Zeke's words of denial, but none were forthcoming. He lowered his eyes.
Tessa flushed, saying to Rory with a kind of angry triumph, "So you beware of loving him, Miss Kavanaugh. He has no heart. He'll destroy all your dreams just as he ran roughshod over mine. I was engaged to be married until he drove my poor Marco away. Flashing his money around, he bullied and bribed Marco, forced him to desert me."
"I never meant to hurt you, Tessa," Zeke said. "I was only trying to protect you."
"By making certain that I stayed an old maid forever?” Her lips trembled, her eyes filling with tears. "For the rest of my life, I will be alone."
“Tessa, for the love of God!" Zeke stepped away from the mantel and tried to rest his hands on her shoulders. "There is no reason that has to be true."
She struck his hands away. "Don't touch me. I told you once I'd never forgive you and I mean
t it. You ruined my life. You ruin everything you touch." Her tears spilled over, streaking her cheeks. "There now, I have said all I mean to say."
Backing away from Zeke, she wrenched open the door to the flat and raced out into the corridor.
"Tessa!" Zeke rushed forward, and Rory thought he meant to run out as well, But he pulled up short on the threshold and snapped at Tony, "Don't just stand there gawking. Go after her."
"Damned if I will! I'm not leaving you here alone with Rory."
"You brought my sister here and you are bloody well going to see that she gets home safely. I would myself but-"
"But she doesn't want a thing to do with you," Tony said with a vicious satisfaction.
"Oh, shut up, Tony," Rory cried. "Zeke is right. Get going."
"Rory!" Tony looked completely betrayed but Rory was beyond caring.
"I said, get out of here! You've caused enough trouble for one evening."
Hurt and anger warred in Tony's eyes. "Right! Well, you don't have to worry. I won't be causing you trouble anymore."
Whipping about, he left, deliberately shoving against Zeke as he rushed out of the flat, slamming the door behind him. But Zeke didn't even seem notice. He hurried to the windows that fronted the street and parted the curtain, peering out anxiously.
Rory joined him. In the pool of light cast by the street lamp, she could see Tony handing up Theresa Marceone into a wagon. Angelo was in the driver's seat and must have been waiting all this time. Apparently he was in on this too. At this moment, Rory would have given much to have boxed both their ears, Tony's and Angelo's.
Zeke let out a deep breath of relief as the wagon clattered off down the street. "Thank goodness for that or I would have had to take Tessa home myself, by force if necessary. And the devil knows she already has enough grudges against me."
Zeke let the curtain fall back in place, his shoulders sagging. Rory thought she had never seen any man look so drained. Her Da had told her once that words often inflicted more damage than fists. She'd never believed him until now.
Zeke appeared to have taken a worse battering from the confrontation with his sister than the one with the two street toughs. They had only roughed him up, bruised his jaw. It had taken Tessa to bring that look of utter misery into his eyes. Zeke had made little effort to defend himself, just letting her hammer away at him as though he deserved it.
Rory rested one hand on Zeke's arm. "You don't have to worry about your sister. For all his temper, I know Tony will make sure she gets home."
"I'm certain he will." Zeke did not attempt to pull away, but he didn't respond to her touch either. "You never told me I had a rival, another suitor in the offing."
"He's not a suitor. He's just Tony."
"I see." And Zeke did appear to understand, for he added wryly, "Poor fellow."
He walked slowly back to the armchair and gathered up the coat he had discarded before. A rush of alarm shot through Rory as he moved toward the door.
"What are you doing?"
He spared her a weary glance. "I was going to save you the trouble of asking me to leave."
"Why would I do a thing like that?" She rushed across the room. Although she did not do anything so dramatic as flatten herself against the door, she did get between Zeke and his exit.
"Come now, Rory. You're a sensible girl. And Tessa has seen to it that you have been most thoroughly warned."
"As if I would believe anything she had to say without giving you a chance to defend yourself.”
“I can't. All that she said was basically true."
Was it? Rory wasn't so sure. Perhaps it was enough that Zeke believed it to be. No matter how bitterly Tessa accused, no one condemned Zeke any more than he did himself. Rory could read it in his eyes, a sentence of eternal damnation.
"I still don't want you to go," she said.
"Forgive me, Aurora Rose, but I fear I am in no mood to take up where we left off when we were interrupted."
His dry reference to that passionate moment on her sofa caused Rory to blush hotly. "I never expected you to.” She faltered. How could she explain to him what she hardly understood herself? That she just couldn't let him leave this way, in a far worse case than when she had brought him home.
"It's a long way across town. You look so tired. I would offer to let you use my Da's bed, but I already gave it away to Tony's grandpa. But you could spend the night on my sofa. It's quite comfortable, and I am sure everything will seem so much better in the morning."
As his brows arched upward in surprise, she blurted out, "I can't bear the thought of you going back to that great empty house of yours."
"It's not empty. I have twenty-three servants." Despite the irony of his reply, his lips curved into the semblance of a smile. His eyes softened with something akin to gratitude. Retreating, he dropped his coat back on the chair.
Rory had actually tucked a blanket around him, Zeke thought with some bemusement as he lay flat on his back on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. And she had pressed a kiss to his forehead before turning down the lamps and retreating to her own bedroom at the back of the flat.
Now the parlor was lost in shadow and silence, only the moonlight providing patches of illumination, the only sound an occasional clatter of coach wheels from the street below. The darkness and the quiet oppressed Zeke. He wished he had been more responsive to Rory's kindness. She probably thought him damned ungrateful, which was far from the case.
No matter how great his misery, he only had to think of her and he found himself able to smile. She was a bit of a hoyden, his Rory, taking crazy risks up in the sky and on the streets of New York. Imagine walking alone through that warehouse district after dark. Still, she had fairly brained that one ruffian who had attacked him.
Yet for all her toughness, she had her more womanly side. He remembered the gentleness of her hands as she had pulled the blanket more snugly about him, softly bidding him good night. He could picture Rory as a mother, raising a rowdy brood of kids.
Oh, she would be quick to deal a smart slap to sticky fingers caught raiding the cookie jar, or to box the ears of squabbling siblings. But he could also imagine her mending scraped knees, brushing back tousled hair, bestowing fiercely tender kisses to soothe away childish woes.
He'd made a mistake when he believed all her nonsense about not being the marrying kind. That's exactly what she was. She ought to be wed to someone like that Tony. For all the trouble he had caused Zeke, dragging Tessa here tonight, Zeke could tell Tony was a nice boy, an honest one with Rory's best interests at heart. It was painfully obvious the kid was crazy in love with Rory and half-mad with jealousy.
As for Zeke Morrison, once known as Johnnie Marceone- he was nothing but a selfish bastard. Thinking back to that moment earlier on the sofa with Rory now only filled him with self-loathing. Ever since meeting Rory, he hadn't given much consideration to anything but his own desires.
Tessa had been right to come here and warn Rory. Exactly as she had said after her own simplistic fashion—he was a bad man.
Zeke tossed restlessly, nearly dislodging the blanket Rory had tucked so carefully about him. He had to bend his knees, the sofa not quite matching him in length, but he had slept in far worse places. It wouldn't have mattered if he had been ensconced upon the world's downiest feather bed. No matter how exhausted he was, he knew he would get no sleep tonight.
It had been a shock seeing Tessa again. A year had gone by since he'd seen her last and she still looked ready to spit in his eye. Time had done nothing to dull her tongue. Sharp as ever, she could be more cutting than any blade that had ever nicked him in a street fight.
Maybe that was as it should be. Sadie Marceone had always been too gentle, never rebuking Zeke half enough. Perhaps it was good that she had always had Tessa to do it for her.
All Mama ever wanted was just once to hear you call her "mother." All your lousy money and you couldn't even give her that.
Zeke flung one arm across his ey
es. He could shut out the patterns of moonlight spilling through the curtains, but he couldn't shut out those accusing words or the memories they spawned.
He could still see that day so clearly, he might well have been a kid again, all of seven years old. He had been fighting as usual. Some bigger boys had been picking on Buck Tooth Willy again, ever an object of ridicule because of his prominent front teeth.
Zeke had been stupid to challenge the older boys. He was big for his age, but they were so much bigger, members of that dreaded street gang, the Plug Uglies. But something in him had never borne much tolerance for bullies, so he rushed to Billy's rescue, fists flying. Billy had escaped, but the two youths had damn near busted Zeke's head open.
They had left him on his knees in the street, blood spurting from his nose. That's how Sadie Marceone had found him. That was the first time he ever looked up into her plump, careworn features. Even then the lines had crisscrossed a face forever old, yet her eyes, remarkable blackcurrant eyes, had been forever young.
She had fussed over him, clucking her tongue in that motherly fashion she had, and then scooped him out of the gutter, taking him back to the settlement house where she did volunteer work.
While the other ladies doled out soup to the vagrant poor of the city, Sadie took him back into the kitchens, cleaned up his nose and applied ointment to his cuts.
Looking back on it now, Zeke was surprised that he had let her, half-wild savage that he had been, subsisting mostly off the leavings of garbage cans like some stray dog. Perhaps it had been because Sadie was the first woman he remembered ever being kind to him. Most ladies had eyed him askance, as though they thought he meant to steal their purses, or, worse yet, chased him with the business end of a broom for bringing his dirty person too near their own pampered darlings.
As she tended his hurts, her work-roughened hands had been gentle, her broad smile warmer than the fire blazing in the coal stove.
"That was a fine thing you did standing up to those bullies," she said. "I saw how you rushed to help that other boy."
Escapade (9781301744510) Page 14
